


Top Ten Child Stars You Didn't Know Were Dead!

by hammerhorror



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Beverly Marsh & Richie Tozier Are Best Friends, F/M, First Meetings, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mentioned Sonia Kaspbrak, New York City, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:53:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26315986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hammerhorror/pseuds/hammerhorror
Summary: 10. Richie Tozier(or: eddie meets former child star richie tozier. and it gets worse.)
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough & Audra Phillips, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 18
Kudos: 29





	1. the right to die

**Author's Note:**

> hiii, so this was originally going to be like. a oneshot, i suppose, but then things happened and now there's going to be more and it necessitates this being posted in chapters. 
> 
> i always find it kind of difficult to give my fics trigger/content warnings because they aren't always really explicit with the subject matter despite it being pretty intrinsic to the themes of the story, but this is a general content warning for: very straightforward, rough, irreverent kind of approach to mental health. this includes medication, dealing with abusive parents, substance abuse, and things like that. 
> 
> i really hope you enjoy!!! :)

Eddie’s eyelids flutter open and closed, open and closed as his body struggles to decide whether he’s ready to wake up or desperate for another twenty minutes of sleep. There’s a weird, nagging thought in the back of his head that today is important for some reason, but he can’t quite place why. When he notices his bedroom door cracking open slowly, catches the faintest smell of buttercream frosting, and sees an Audra-and-Bill shaped shadow approaching, he remembers.

“One, two—”

“Haaaaaappy b—”

“No, I said on three. One, two, _three_ , happy birthday…”

He keeps his eyes closed for the entire humiliating duration of the song, but there’s something so comforting about their presence that he could fall asleep again right then and there, listening to them bicker about whether or not he’s sensitive to any of the ingredients of his birthday cake.

Bill switches on the overhead light. “You working today, b-birthday boy?” he asks, to which Eddie nods, groans, and throws his arms over his eyes to protect them from the searing pain of sudden light. “Why didn’t you ask for the day off?”

“I don’t know. I just didn’t care, I guess.”

Audra sits down at the foot of Eddie’s bed and gives his knee a gentle squeeze through his comforter. “That’s actually very sad, Eddie. You’re twenty-five. You’ve lived a quarter of your life. We want to celebrate you.”

“Let’s celebrate me by being thankful that I have gainful employment and I might actually finish my degree before I’m thirty.” Eddie props up on his elbows. Bill gleefully presents the cake to him. The sloppy decorative lettering reads **HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EDDI** **E** , the last letter of his name barely readable where they clearly ran out of room.

“Can we take you to dinner, at least?” Audra asks.

“Beverly’s taking me out, remember? I would love for you guys to come, though.” Eddie reaches out for the cake and scoops a bit of icing on his finger. He cautiously licks it off. It’s too sweet for his taste and most definitely going to make him feel both emotionally and physically horrible if he eats too much, but he doesn’t want to break their hearts.

“Oh, I’ve met Beverly,” Bill says. “She’s dating, uh… Ben.”

“Ben,” Audra repeats. “Ben! Oh, I adore Ben. That sounds great, Eddie, just text us the details. I have an audition soon, so I’ve gotta leave.” She leans over and gives Eddie a kiss on the forehead and then stands up, smoothing out the fabric of her dress. She’s nervous.

He wants to ask her to please stop treating him like a child, but then he remembers all that crap he read on the internet about love languages and things like that. “Break a leg, Audra,” he says in unison with Bill.

He and Bill decide on cake for breakfast, moving out to the kitchen where they sit on the counter together, their legs swinging back and forth and occasionally touching. They eat directly out of the baking pan, Bill keeping it perfectly perched on his hand in between the two of them.

“You g-gonna call your mom today?”

Eddie gives a noncommittal grunt in response.

“Understandable.”

“I always get so mad at her on my birthday. I mean, I’m pretty resentful of her basically every day. But on my birthday, it’s like… why the fuck did she allow me to be born? Like, what motivated her to do that? I’m not even having a good time.”

Bill’s eyes soften and his mouth twists into the slightest frown. “Come on, Eddie, don’t say things like that. We have a good time together, right?”

“Of course we do. But I need you to understand…”

Bill understands. He doesn’t have to say anything. Eddie knows he understands. Birthdays were always difficult. Eddie was never permitted to have a party and his mother never baked him a cake or anything like that, but she did allow Bill to come over and would let them have one snack from her supply in the pantry. They would play video games together and stay up one hour past Eddie’s bedtime. It was one of the few things Eddie looked forward to all year.

“I understand, Eddie. It’s better this way, anyway. My parents forgot my birthday this year. That happens sometimes. Or they’ll call me on. G-G-Georgie’s. You know.”

“I know,” Eddie says softly. He kicks his feet back and forth, letting them lightly bounce off the cabinet underneath. “You think other people are constantly trying to just… forget things about their lives?” he asks.

“Sure,” Bill says. He sounds confident in his answer. “Most of my happiest m-memories with my family are from b-b-before Georgie died. I think I could do without most things that happened after that. But I wouldn’t give up our memories together, Eddie. That’s what helped us survive until we m-made it… here.”

Eddie closes his mouth around his plastic fork and holds it there, giving himself time to formulate an answer. “How enlightening, William,” he says, putting a stuffy voice like all those weird publishers and literary intellectuals Bill hates.

Bill laughs and lightly shoves him. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. G-g-get your ass to work, Kaspbrak. We’ve got bills to pay!”

Eddie laughs, hops down from the counter, and begins in the direction of his room. He says over his shoulder, “You know what? Why don’t you try getting a real job?”

“Being the greatest mind of our generation is a real job!” Bill calls after him.

Eddie flips him off and then gets ready for work. 

“We’re going to this amazing place downtown that basically no one has heard of. I mean, some people have heard of it, you know, like cool people. The owner knows my parents, so he got us a great reservation,” Beverly says, leaning over Eddie’s desk and pressing a thin, pale finger on some paperwork to pretend like they’re having a work-related discussion.

“Sounds good, Bev,” Eddie says absently. He’s trying to account for a piece of jewelry that was loaned to a model for a photoshoot a month ago and has seemingly yet to be returned. “Have you seen this bracelet?” he asks, sliding a picture over to Beverly.

“Not since that Vogue shoot,” Beverly says.

“I’m going to die. I can’t find it anywhere. Patty’s going to kill me. Or worse, Stan.”

“They must not be too upset about it if they haven’t said anything yet,” Beverly figures. She’s always as cool as a cucumber. Never gets stressed about anything. Like she has therapeutic sleepy-time tea running through her veins. “Anyway, don’t worry. If they notice, I’ll just say that I borrowed it or something.”

“But if we never find it…”

“Eddie, honey, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Let’s talk about important things, like the fact that we’re going to get absolutely wasted tonight.”

“Can’t remember the last time I got wasted,” Eddie admits.

“That sounds like something an old person would say.”

Eddie shrugs, unable to argue with that.

“Ohhh, so I was wondering… if you would mind if I invited one of my friends,” Beverly says. She walks her fingers up Eddie’s arm and straightens the collar of his shirt. “He’s back in town after, like, five mental breakdowns—”

“Not very assuring, Bev.”

“I know, but he can’t help it. He was—” She lowers her voice. “—a child star. Like on Disney. I met him on a commercial shoot when I was six for some nasty cereal.”

Eddie looks up, intrigued. “Who?” he asks.

“Richie Tozier. Remember, he was in that musical thing? And he was always the goofy sidekick in those coming-of-age movies? He went crazy and had a meltdown at Lisa Vanderpump’s restaurant in Los Angeles and it was all over the news. Anyway, he’s marginally better now.”

“Isn’t he always on social media saying stuff that pisses people off? Like, didn’t he just make a Twitter thesis on how assisted suicide is a fundamental human right last month?” Eddie remembers this because the thread had opened with a tweet reading **SUICIDE BOOTHS LIKE FROM FUTURAMA SHOULD BE ON EVERY STREET CORNER IN AMERICA AND TO DENY PEOPLE THE RIGHT TO DIE IS UNAMERICAN: A THREAD** and that isn’t something one easily forgets.

“Yeah, yeah, but he does that so he can get on talk shows and make money because he doesn’t act anymore. I promise he’s really nice and I want him to make good, normal friends. You’re the best, most normal person I know. Sort of. I mean, you’re the definitely the best. Just not quite the most normal.” She pauses and glances over to Stan’s desk, where he is giving her a distinctly unapproving glare. “Stan is catching on to the fact that I’m not doing any work, so I’m going back to my desk.”

Eddie watches Beverly float back to her desk with her usual graceful gait. He loves her, truly, and she has become his closest friend since he acclimated to life in the city, but sometimes he can’t quite shake the feeling that she’s trying to dig something out of him that he isn’t even sure is there. She introduces him to her actor friends, she takes him to up-and-coming restaurants, and at the end of every single evening she looks at him with those beautiful eyes of hers and asks him, “Did you have a good time?” as if her heart will break if he says no.

Two years prior to Eddie’s 25th birthday, he received a phone call from Bill, his oldest and truest friend from childhood. Bill was desperate—he had moved to New York City on sort of a whim after making a lucky and rather impressive chunk of change off of his writing and was now busting his ass trying to get more serious writing published, scraping by on smaller projects to support himself. He wanted Eddie to move in with him because he was desperate for something, he didn’t specify what, but he missed home. He also wanted some help with rent.

Eddie had happily accepted Bill’s request to move in together, because he was wasting his life away living with his mother after an Adderall-fueled meltdown ruined his first attempt at school. A few months later, he met Beverly. He was working in food service and taking night classes, riddled with anxiety over the loans he had to take out because his mother refused to encourage his life of debauchery in a city full of sin.

( _“Here, I’m going to give you my contact info so you can send me your notes later,” she had said, grabbing Eddie’s phone out of his hand. She hurriedly typed in her name as **BEVERLY SOCIAL PROBLEM** , so Eddie would remember that she was his classmate from their Social Problems class, and he never changed it.)_

She soon got him a job he could easily balance with school, and now he’s here. Doing inventory for expensive jewelry. Among other things, of course—Eddie has a lot of responsibilities around the office of Patty Blum and Stan Uris, two friends of Beverly’s, a jewelry designer on the rise and hitting their stride before hitting thirty and her fastidious, dedicated husband. But a lot of the time, Eddie is on the phone with people asking where bracelets are.

Eddie was already aware that Beverly had done some acting work when she was a child, but it isn’t something that she seems to enjoy talking about very much, so he decided to honor this and not Google any of her past work. She has, however, started showing an interest in the stage and always gives Eddie comp tickets to whatever obscure, strange off-off-off-Broadway production she’s in. Whatever acting work she did as a child obviously left her relatively comfortable, because she lives in a nice Midtown apartment with her boyfriend, Ben, and no roommates, and she never seems to be worried about rent. That’s a marker of great success in New York City, as far as Eddie is concerned. Eddie has the feeling that she has a day job to keep herself occupied and to help Patty and Stan with their business, just like she went to school to keep herself occupied. Eddie wouldn’t be able to sustain a life in New York City if he, Bill, and Audra weren’t splitting the rent 40/30/30 and even then, it’s not the most comfortable lifestyle he’s ever attempted to maintain. But this job pays well for what they do and is flexible with scheduling around school, so Beverly really did bestow a blessing on Eddie even when she barely knew him.

Eddie loves Beverly. He just wishes that he didn’t feel like he was hurting her feelings every single day. That’s why he is going to dedicate his own birthday to letting her drag him wherever she thinks he’s going to want to go.

“Eddie, can you buzz in Betty?” Beverly yells from across the office.

“Inside voice,” Stan glowers.

Beverly winces. “Sorry!”

The new intern is always forgetting her key and has to be buzzed in almost every day. It wouldn’t bother Eddie if the button weren’t on the wall directly behind his head—thus, it is always his responsibility to let her in. He reaches behind him and holds the buzzer.

She comes stumbling in with an armful of flowers. “Oh my gosh! I’m so, so sorry I’m late, I had to pick up these up!” She sets the bouquet down on Eddie’s desk and leans over, hands on her waist, to catch her breath.

Eddie gently turns the bouquet around until he finds the card attached. _Dear Eddie—we’re happy to have you. Thank you for everything you do. Happy birthday. – Patricia and Stanley_

He can hear his mother’s voice in his head telling him he’s allergic to flowers. But he smells them, and he feels happy. “Thank… you guys…” he says. He feels like crying and he isn’t sure why.

“Happy birthday, Eddie,” Stan says solemnly, trying to hide the fact that he’s smiling.

“Yeah, Eddie! Happy birthday!” Betty beams.

“Happy birthday, Eddie!” Beverly echoes, and Stan reminds her to use her inside voice yet again.

There’s always something effortlessly cool about Beverly. Eddie watches her take lazy drags off her cigarette while they wait for Bill and Audra to arrive at the nightclub. She’s dressed in all black and has this surly expression on her face that only wears when she wants to discourage strange men from approaching her. Eddie’s presence itself is rarely enough to keep men away from her.

Bill and Audra show up by cab, predictably bickering with each other over whether they gave the driver the right address before they spot Beverly and Eddie. Audra greets Beverly with a hug like they’ve known each other their whole lives. She kisses her on both cheeks. “I’m Audra! It’s so nice to finally meet you! You look so pretty!” she gushes.

“You look absolutely gorgeous!” Beverly gushes in turn, and the two of them walk together with their arms linked ahead of Eddie and Bill. They look like they’re straight out of an edgy teen-oriented CW drama, the way they strut with an aura of otherworldly confidence and beauty by the general line for the club wrapped around the block. Beverly greets the burly bouncer at the VIP entrance as if he’s her best friend in the entire world, tells him that she’s Beverly Marsh, and he gestures her and Audra inside without even checking their IDs. Then he immediately throws a freakishly large hand out to stop Eddie and Bill. He asks over his shoulder, “Ma’am, are these guys with you?”

“Yes, indeed!” Beverly says cheerily.

“Let me see your ID,” he says to Eddie.

“What about him?!” Eddie yells, pointing to Bill. This man could snap him in two pieces like a toothpick, and still he mouths off. 

“He’s fine. Just you.”

Deeply humiliated, Eddie begrudgingly pulls his wallet out of his pocket and shows the bouncer his ID.

“Alright, baby face. You’re good,” he says, and moves aside.

“Thanks,” Eddie bristles. Bill can’t help but laugh beside him.

Eddie thinks he prefers the comfort of waiting in line outside of the trashier venues Beverly is so fond of instead of getting VIP-level scrutinized at one of these weird, trendy places—because places like this have all these expectations attached to them, like Eddie’s supposed to enjoy getting blackout drunk on overpriced liquor at _this_ club just because it’s decorated to look like the Red Room from _Twin Peaks_ but gay. 

When they reach their booth and get comfortable, Beverly puts in rapid-fire orders for alcohol without any regard to cost whatsoever and Eddie can practically feel the color leaving his face. “Bev… that’s going to be so expensive…” he croaks.

“It’s fine! It’s a holiday! Let me treat you!”

Once the drinking commences, Eddie realizes that he has made a mistake with his seating choice. The booth isn’t quite as big as he had been anticipating and he is wedged between Beverly and Audra who are sharing audition horror stories and laughing hysterically with each other about a side of New York City with which Eddie is thoroughly unfamiliar, but he admires their tales of resilience and willingness to admit their worst fuck-ups. They decide to go to the bathroom together and, in perfect formation, shove their drinks over to Eddie for safekeeping. He pulls their drinks close and contemplates his own, only his second drink of the night and now a bit watered down, and wonders what the fuck he is doing here. No matter how much Beverly talks up these places, he can never understand their appeal.

Bill has temporarily bailed to take a very important call about very important book business and Eddie can feel himself beginning to become somewhat sulky when a stranger sits down in the booth, right next to him, a little too close for Eddie’s taste.

“You look like an Eddie,” the stranger says.

“Uh… I am an Eddie?”

The stranger is wearing coke-bottle glasses and there’s something familiar about him. He’s tall, almost awkwardly so, with a slight overbite, and distinctly lacking any unapproachable New York City edge about him. Eddie’s a little drunk, so he’s not putting the pieces together as quickly as he normally would. He gapes at the odd, gangly guy who has invited himself to the occasion, who kind of looks like a college dropout turned ska punk singer.

“Sweet. Beverly tells me it’s your birthday.”

“Wait!” Eddie says after one long, drawn out _uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh_. “You’re Richie Tozier!”

Richie swiftly places two fingers over Eddie’s lips. “Shhhhh, I’m being lowkey.”

“Is that why you’re wearing those weird glasses?” Eddie asks, pulling his face away. He probably would have literally bitten those two fingers clean off in an act of self-defense if he were 2% more unstable and 1% more inebriated.

“These are my real prescription glasses, thank you, but yes. Like, is anyone gonna look at some goofy string bean motherfucker with magnifying glasses on his face and think, yeah, I want to get a selfie with that dude. He definitely looks like he was in movies a long time ago.”

“I suppose not,” Eddie says. He folds his hands together on the table. “I hear you had a meltdown at Lisa Vanderpump’s restaurant.”

“Oh? Yeah, this lady’s dog pissed on my shoes and I just kind of started screaming and throwing food everywhere,” Richie says. He tilts his head to the side, eyeing Eddie up and down. Eddie can especially tell he’s doing this because of the way his eyes look so fucking huge behind his glasses.

“I wouldn’t say that’s your fault,” Eddie offers, feeling very exposed. He’s had worse meltdown over smaller problems. Like the one he feels like he might have right now.

“Right! Thank you! Like, okay, I get it, people in L.A. like to take their dogs everywhere, these people cannot live without their fucking dogs. Don’t make it my problem. Anyway, I was really fucked up and hardly remember it, but there’s a bunch of videos on YouTube. We can watch them later if you want.”

Eddie is speechless. 

The girls return shortly. At the sight of Richie, Beverly squeals and wraps him up in a strangling hug, squeezing him as hard as she can. They accidentally knock over a few empty glasses on the table in the process, melted ice sliding from one end to the other. “Oh my God, I’ve missed you so much. Audra, this is my friend Richie.”

“Richie Tozier?” Audra asks in a scream-whisper. “From that one show? And those movies about the dog?”

“The one and only.”

“I thought you died!”

“I wish.”

“Oh my God! This is so exciting! I was literally in love with you when I was twelve! All my friends thought what’s-his-face was so dreamy, you know from _The Lunch Bunch_? But I secretly thought you were the cutest thing ever!” She leans over the table, arm extended with her phone in selfie mode. “Take a picture with me.”

“I love that. The highest honor of my career is being someone that twelve-year-old girls were ashamed to think was cute,” Richie says good-naturedly, throwing up a peace sign as Audra snaps the picture.

Audra sits down and types furiously on her phone. “I have to tell my sister, oh my God. I won’t post this on Instagram yet just in case it causes any other depressed late-millennial babies to swarm over here.”

Richie shoots finger guns at her. “Audra, you’re a girl after my own heart.”

When Bill finally returns from whatever important phone calls he was taking, they proceed to drink more and there’s enough rhythm in the conversation between everyone that Eddie doesn’t feel overwhelmed to pretend to be happier than he is. And he is happy, truly, just as not as much as he should be, he feels. This is a genuinely nice night that Beverly planned for him. But sometimes sitting behind the looking glass feels a little better than participating.

“And _then_ Eddie got into an Uber with total strangers and just, like, went with them. Because he thought they were us.” Beverly is laughing hysterically at Audra’s personal favorite story of Eddie’s past misfortune, the kind of laughter that eventually turns silent as she holds her hand over her heart and her entire body shakes.

Richie claps a hand down on Eddie’s shoulder. “You’re secretly a wild one, huh? I can see it,” he says.

“So I’ve been told,” Eddie says. Richie keeps his hand there, giving Eddie’s shoulder a gentle squeeze and then doing a full arm wraparound like he’s an ambitious teenager in a movie theatre. It’s fine, Eddie figures, they’re in a crowded booth and it’s probably a matter of comfort. Eddie is drunk enough to let loose a little and allow another human being to touch him in a friendly manner. “I went home with them and everything. When we got out of the car, they turned around and were like, _you’re not Kevin_!”

“Where were you?” Beverly asks, wiping at the tears forming in the corner of her eyes.

“Bushwick, I think,” Eddie says, looking at Bill for confirmation. Bill nods. “I called Bill and I was freaking out, like, I was so fucking plastered, and I had no idea where I was because I was still getting used to living in the city. I threw up on the side of the street while I was waiting for him to come get me. One of the girls from the Uber waited with me, she had to text Bill her address and everything. She kept rubbing my back and telling me it was okay. And calling me Kevin. I miss her.”

“Sometimes you’ll catch Eddie in a party mood,” Beverly says, taking a sip of her vodka cranberry, finally coming back down from her fit of laughter at Eddie’s infamous Uber disaster. “Oh, Eddie Bear, you know how much I adore you, right? See—” She turns to Richie. “I took him under my wing when he moved to the city. I got him a job.” She’s proud of this. Eddie knows she is. Maybe he initially started out as a pet project for her, but now their lives in this city are forever entangled with one another.

The conversation continues—Audra is the best at telling funny stories about her friends without making them sound embarrassing. Occasionally she and Bill will argue about insignificant details and both whip their heads around towards Eddie in unison for validation. Richie keeps score of who is right about what and the first one to reach ten points wins—it’s Audra.

“So, what do I win?” she asks, setting her drink down on the table with a little more force than she intended. She’s beyond drunk.

“Tell me your wildest dreams,” Richie says seriously, also setting his drink down with unnecessary force. He has removed his arm from Eddie’s shoulders, leaving a strange, light feeling. Like trying to sleep without a blanket.

“Take me to an event,” Audra says as if she’s negotiating a multimillion-dollar business merger.

“I’ll take you to the Tony Awards next year.”

Audra screams. “You’ll take me to the fucking Tony Awards!”

“Yes. But we’ll probably just be seat warmers. Not very glamorous.”

“That’s fine. I need you to know that I love you. And I’m going to be very sick.” Bill and Audra proceed to bicker because Bill thinks it isn’t okay for Audra to try and secure opportunities to rub elbows with famous people at Eddie’s birthday celebration and Audra thinks that it is just fine.

Eddie assures them that it’s okay and does not bother him at all.

“Okay,” Audra says. “I love you, and happy birthday, but I really meant it when I said I’m going to be sick.” 

Beverly moves to put her arms around Audra for support, but instead makes a curious face and reaches into her purse for her phone. “Oh, shit,” she says, talking to herself. “Guys, Ben locked himself out of the apartment. I need to go let him in. But we can all head to my place if you want? Audra, you’re okay?”

Audra assures them that she’s fine and just wants to go somewhere with a bathtub she can lie down in, so Beverly makes sure the bill is taken care of and refuses to let Eddie see how much it put her back. They weave their way through the crowd and towards the exit, and Beverly then puts herself on Uber duty.

It’s unseasonably warm for September. Eddie is still feeling sweaty and flushed from a combination of sitting in a muggy room in a crowded booth with four other people and the fact that his head always feels like it’s going to overheat when he drinks, like a computer trying its hardest to run way too many programs at once. He leans back on his heels, and forward, and then back again. Beverly, Audra, and Bill are trying to put their last functioning brain cells together to properly identify what a Toyota Corolla looks like, and Richie sidles up next to Eddie.

“You know you’re the luckiest guy in New York City, right?” he asks.

“Is that so?” Eddie has never particularly considered himself lucky before, but he’s having a change of heart lately.

“Of all the people in the city you could have met… you met Beverly Marsh. No one has ever cared for me the way she does.”

“So it _isn’t_ because she secretly thinks I’m pitiful and can’t take care of myself?” Eddie asks. His tone is light enough that it doesn’t sound as serious as it feels.

“Not at all. She just likes to invest in the people she loves. She’s the best.”

Eddie imagines all the stories they have between the two of them. All the weird Hollywood bullshit they endured in their most tender years. What all it must take to forge the type of friendship that transcends chaotic career shifts and state lines, that starts at age six on the set of a cereal commercial and ends up in New York City, grown and slightly emotionally stable.

Beverly turns back towards them and extends a hand. Eddie doesn’t move, certain that she’s reaching for Richie. “Eddie! You want shotgun?” she asks, gesticulating impatiently towards Eddie until he wisens up and takes her hand.

“Pretty sure Audra’s way ahead of us,” Richie says, nodding towards the car where Audra is hanging halfway out of the passenger seat. Bill looks mortified as he tries to lift her legs and sit her upright. 

“It’s gonna be a tight fit in the back,” Beverly notes, but the tone of her voice hints that she isn’t particularly concerned. She’s never particularly concerned about anything because everything always works out in Beverly’s world. “I’m sure it’ll be okay. I can sit on someone’s lap.”

Once Audra is safely secured in the car, Bill and Richie climb in the backseat. Beverly drags Eddie behind her and crawls into Richie’s lap to give Eddie the necessary space he needs to secure the door closed. The Uber driver looks justifiably annoyed and roughly pulls back out into the street and sets on the path to Beverly’s apartment. Eddie knows that Beverly is going to tip him generously. 

“It’s my friend Eddie’s birthday, Eddie’s sitting there in the backseat right now,” Audra babbles cheerfully up in the front. “You’re so nice for coming to pick us up. I’m really glad you’re here. Thank you so much for being here for us.”

Beverly holds her hands over her mouth to try and stifle her laughter. “Audra, sweetheart, why don’t you close your eyes for a minute and we’ll let you know when we’re home,” she says.

“Sure thing, Beverly. You’re so nice, you know that? You’re possibly the nicest and the prettiest person I’ve ever met in my entire life.” Audra pulls her knees up to her chest and rests her head on the car window. “Okay, I’m closing my eyes now. I’ll see you guys soon,” she says, and she unexpectedly falls completely silent. The driver visibly relaxes.

Eddie follows her lead, also leaning against the window at his right and enjoying the cool feeling of the glass against his head. Beverly still has a tight hold on his hand and is tracing soothing circles over his skin with her thumb. She and Richie talk together in quiet voices and Eddie finds himself inexplicably soothed by this. He closes his eyes, and he strangely almost feels sad when the ride is over.

Beverly lives on the tenth floor of her building. Eddie hates this for a number of reasons: the building might someday collapse out from under them, or maybe it’ll catch on fire and he’ll have to jump to his death, or a home invader will break in one night and leave him cornered up against a window and then he’ll have to decide between, again, jumping to his death or being stabbed, or bludgeoned, or set on fire, or strangled, or—

The elevator gives a gentle _ding_! to indicate they have reached the tenth floor. Ben is sitting cross-legged on the carpeted hallway floor, his back up against the door. When he looks up and sees Beverly, his eyes light up like he’s looking right at an angel on earth. Eddie loves that about Ben—there’s never a mundane moment in his life with Beverly. Every time he tells her that he loves her it sounds like it’s first time. They take good care of each other. 

“Thanks so much for coming home, babe. Eddie, happy birthday, I’m really sorry if I cut your night short,” Ben says. 

Eddie shakes his head. “Thank you, Ben, and it’s fine. Audra wasn’t going to last much longer, so it’s good we’re here.” Ben looks relieved to see that no one is mad at him.

Beverly pulls her keys out of her purse and tosses them to Ben. “Ben, baby, I’m letting Audra sleep in the guest bathroom.”

“Bathroom?” Ben repeats, confused. He unlocks the door, opens it, and stands aside to allow everyone entrance first. He’s a gentleman like that.

“Yes, she said she wants to lie down in the tub. Can you grab her a pillow and a blanket from the closet?”

Ben closes and locks the door behind him. He complies with Beverly’s request for bedding to accommodate Audra’s very strange drunken needs. He then wishes Eddie a happy birthday again, gives Beverly a kiss on the cheek, and excuses himself from the festivities as he had a long day at work and is desperate to sleep.

“But don’t worry about being too loud, we got this crazy noise machine and I basically can’t hear literally anything besides my own thoughts when it’s on,” he assures them. “Goodnight, everyone.”

After making sure Audra is comfortable in her drunken bed of choice, Beverly grabs tequila, lime wedges, and salt from the kitchen and sits down on the plush, maroon carpet in the center of the living room. “Okay. We’re focused on efficiency now. Eddie, come here.”

“Okay, okay,” Eddie groans, languidly sliding from the couch to the floor and crawling over to Beverly. He licks his hand below his index finger and reaches out for Beverly to sprinkle the wet skin with salt. “No shot glasses?” he asks, appalled.

“My hands were full,” Beverly shrugs, holding up the tequila bottle and lime wedges for Eddie’s taking.

“Trashy,” Eddie teases, licking the salt from his hand and grabbing the tequila, taking an uncomfortably large drink. He follows it with a bite of lime and makes a face. “Disgusting. If I catch something from you guys I’m gonna be so mad. I’ll never let you make my birthday plans again, I swear. I’m only doing this because I’m too drunk to care.”

“Don’t worry, alcohol’s like a sterilizer, right? Richie, baby, have some tequila.”

Richie is sitting on the couch with Bill who is curled up with his phone, lazily scrolling through emails, already checked out for the night. Audra and Eddie like to tease him about being a 60-year-old man in the body of a 25-year-old. Always says he’s down for anything, usually the first to crash. Second tonight only because Audra got excessively hammered at the club.

“Anything for my number one girl,” Richie obliges, moving to the floor and sitting cross-legged in between Beverly and Eddie.

Within twenty minutes of shots and joking and Audra scolding them for being too loud from the guest bathroom, Beverly is asleep on the floor and Bill is gently snoring on the couch behind them.

“I have no idea what gets into her sometimes. She is a mess,” Richie whispers, picking up the sucked-up lime wedges scattered over the floor and putting them in a neat pile beside Beverly’s head. “I’m sure you wanted to spend your birthday watching other people get trashed.”

“I’m in no place to criticize. Like, admittedly… I’m pretty drunk,” Eddie says with a laugh. The carpet they’re sitting on is so plush it feels like an expensive duvet. He decides that Beverly is on to something, so he lies down.

“Did you have a good night?” Richie asks. He flops down on the carpet as well and turns on his side to face Eddie, propping up on his elbow.

“It’s been one of my better birthdays.”

“Does Eddie Bear have some birthday baggage?” Richie asks with an exaggerated pout.

“Please, God, do _not_ call me that. Bev only does it when she’s drunk and it kills me every single time. Anyway, do you want a dossier on my abusive mom and my shitty childhood?” Eddie asks, kind of serious, mostly not. But he knows deep down it isn’t a real Eddie Kaspbrak Birthday if he doesn’t cry over his mommy at least once. It’s just he’s usually crying into Bill’s shoulder and not on the floor of Beverly’s apartment talking to someone he just met a few hours prior.

“I’m down,” Richie says earnestly. 

“Okay, cool. My dad died when I was four and my mom had a certified mental breakdown. She never wanted me to go anywhere, or do anything, so I was just trapped with her inside our ugly house until I left for college. She was always worrying over me in the worst way. She wanted so badly for me to be sick so I would have to stay with her forever. Or something like that.”

“Like Dee Dee Blanchard?” Richie asks, genuinely shocked. His eyes, already big behind his glasses, look almost cartoonishly huge in surprise.

“Who?”

“That lady who kept her daughter in a wheelchair! And then her daughter got her neckbeard boyfriend to murder her.”

Eddie balks. “That really happened? That wasn’t just on TV?”

Richie nods. “It absolutely happened. And it was pretty cool. Anyway, continue.”

“Oh.” Eddie blinks. He gathers his thoughts and swallows back the urge to start screaming hysterically like he did on his last birthday. Talking about his mom always runs the risk of having a belligerent meltdown. “Well… She had me taking all these weird sugar pills and convinced me I had asthma. She wouldn’t let me run track… which I really wanted to do. Ruined any chance of me enjoying myself for a few hours a week, God forbid. You know how it goes.”

“I truly don’t,” Richie says, horrified. There’s something comforting, vindicating about getting a fresh new sympathetic reaction to the parts of Eddie’s life he tries to feel numb to most days.

“I’m sure you have your share of childhood trauma.”

“Oh, yeah. I was doing coke by the time I was twelve. Right off my manager’s coke nail.”

Eddie lets out a boisterous laugh and has to cover his mouth to contain himself lest he wake up everyone in the apartment. “Are you fucking kidding me?” he whispers.

“I wish I were kidding. I mean I felt fucking insane, all the time. I would be on set for some stupid show where I was playing the goofy middle child of a normal, upper middle-class American family, like, tearing my hair out whenever the cameras were off. It was crazy.” He recounts this as if he were simply talking about the weather. “The emotional narrative that ultimately ends with having a meltdown at a Real Housewife’s restaurant is a tumultuous one, Eddie Spaghetti.”

“Ohhh no, that one’s worse than Eddie Bear.”

“Alright… Eds? You gotta let me have one.”

“I really don’t, actually!” Eddie says, holding down a smile as best he can. He’s too tired to argue further; most nicknames after midnight go uncontested.

“Huh,” Richie says quietly. He has slowly shifted in place to where he is now resting his head on his outstretched arm. They are close, close enough that Eddie could reach out and touch him if he wanted—and he wonders why he would think to use that measure of distance to begin with. Eddie knows they are both going to fall asleep like this. 

“Maybe it’s just because my entire perception of life was informed by made-for-TV teen romance movies, but I kind of think I’m in love with you, Eddie.”

“I think you’re full of shit,” Eddie says coolly, although he can hear his heart beating in his ears.

“It’s those big eyes of yours. The freckles on your nose. The way you talk,” Richie says with such confidence Eddie starts to feel like he might just be falling for it.

Sitting right at the edge of sleep, Eddie says, “We’ll see how you feel after you get to know me a little better.” His eyes are heavy. He blinks, and blinks, and blinks, getting a blurrier picture of Richie’s face with each one. And then he falls asleep.

Eddie never sleeps well when he’s had a lot to drink, and his fitful sleep is disrupted by even the slightest bit of stimuli. The midday sun is spilling into Beverly’s apartment and he can hear her groggy voice, whining and cursing quietly to herself. Something is gently nudging Eddie’s leg, and he opens his eyes to see that it’s her foot.

“Morning,” she says, yawning. “Let’s do a headcount. I kind of remember Bill leaving for a meeting earlier, I think Audra is asleep, Richie’s asleep, Ben is surely at work. And, my dearest Eddie, we… are alive.”

The hangover isn’t too bad. Beverly prepares tea for Eddie and coffee for herself, then sits back down on the floor in front of Eddie. “Did you have a good birthday?” she asks, grinning at him expectantly.

“It was great. Really.” Eddie holds the warm mug up to his forehead to try and alleviate the hangover headache he has. Beverly caught him doing this once after a night out and told him it was very cute, so now she’s the only person who gets to witness it.

“You and Trashmouth got along well?”

“Ohhh my God,” Eddie laughs. “I forgot he played that character!”

“He didn’t have to do much. It’s basically just who he is at his very core.”

Richie stirs, stretching his arms above his head with a gaping yawn. “Stop talking shit about me, Marsh, or we’re gonna have to take this outside.”

“I would wipe the floor with you.”

“I have no doubt that you would.”

“You won’t be able to show your face in this town again.”

“That’s what Lisa Vanderpump said to me at her restaurant before she got all her weird little dogs to maul me. The only reason I’m in New York City is because I am quite literally banned from ever stepping foot in L.A. ever again.”

“Good,” Beverly says, reaching over to squeeze Richie’s ankle. “Because I like having you close. Where are you staying, anyway?”

“My mom’s apartment in the Upper East Side. It’s just me, though, she’s at some retreat for God knows how long.”

“Ohhhh, fancy, Mr. Upper East Side over here,” Beverly teases.

“You live in fucking Midtown,” Richie fires back. He sits up and tangles his hands in the soft material of the carpet that served as a surprisingly comfortable bed for the three of them. “So where do you guys live, Eds?”

“Manhattan Valley,” Eddie says. “We’re probably going to have to move somewhere else once it’s time to renew the lease, though, unless Bill publishes the next great American novel sometime in the next six months. And do not… call me Eds.”

“You can stay with me,” Beverly and Richie offer in unison. They both give each other a _look_. Eddie is ninety-five percent positive he sees Beverly mouth the word _stop_ , her expression amused and incredulous.

“Bill and Audra can’t live without me,” Eddie says with a wave of the hand. “We’re a package deal, unfortunately.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket, barely any battery life left, and notes the time. “I have to get home. I’ve skipped my morning yoga and if I don’t shower and brush my teeth soon I’m going to have to be committed to an institution.”

“Do you just want to leave Audra here and I’ll get her home later?” Beverly offers. 

“Is that okay?” Eddie asks. They fall silent for a moment to observe the sound of Audra of snoring, still lost in a deep, drunken sleep. 

“For sure. I don’t want to disturb her.”

“That’s fine because I’m not wasting money on a cab but I don’t know if she can handle the subway if I woke her up right now. Like, I’m just warning you now. There’s going to be a lot of puking when she wakes—” Eddie gags before he can finish his sentence. “—when she wakes up. Ugh.”

Beverly reaches over and pulls Eddie into a bear hug. “I guess I’ll see you later then, Eddie,” she says, her face nestled in the crook of his neck. “Text me when you get back to your apartment.”

“I think I’m going to head home too, Bev,” Richie says. “Eds, I’ll walk you to the station?”

“Yeah, but only if you never call me Eds again.”

“It’s gonna happen no matter what, I’m just warning you right now,” Richie says with a shrug. He happily receives his vice grip goodbye hug from Beverly, kisses her cheek, then he and Eddie leave as quietly as they can so that they do not incur the wrath of Audra.

Eddie has taken many hungover walks of shame out of Beverly’s apartment building. He always wonders what the doormen think of him—they are nice to him and remember his name, but most of the time they see him, he looks like he’s falling apart. And today he’s leaving with a strange man. He heaves a sigh of relief when he sees that no one is at the front desk at the moment and scuttles by as quickly as he possibly can, while Richie effortlessly matches his pace—freakishly long legs and all. They both wince at the first sight of unadulterated sunlight and Eddie’s headache gets strikingly worse.

“You know how to get home? I don’t know how long you’ve been staying at your place. It took me forever to learn how to navigate the subway system, so,” Eddie says. 

Richie grins, so obviously pleased with the fact that Eddie is fretting over him. “I’m good, Eds, but don’t let that stop you from caring about my wellbeing.”

“I’m just being polite,” Eddie sniffs, and they begin their short walk to Penn Station.

Richie tells Eddie about Los Angeles. Eddie has never left the east coast before, but he’s always wanted to. Beverly talks up California like there’s no better place in the universe. The people are nicer. The weather is dry, but that’s okay. There’s so much amazing food. That’s what she always says, and then she says one day they’ll go together. Her heart belongs in New York and it’s hard for her to leave.

“California is heaven on earth to me, but it’s not for everyone,” Richie says, which sounds a little more realistic. “Also, if you hate driving… Los Angeles isn’t the place for you. I had three major reasons for deciding to move to New York. First, I missed Beverly. Second, there are too many TikTokers in L.A. And three, I fucking can’t stand driving.”

Their respective journeys home are on different trains. “I’ll see you soon, I guess?” Eddie says, feeling a bit reticent, like maybe he’s being too presumptuous or something.

Richie’s eyes are wide like saucers. “Huh? Y-yeah!” he stammers, at a loss for words for the first time since he and Eddie met. “I’ll see you soon, Eddie. I’ll get your number from Bev?”

“Sure,” Eddie says, biting down on his chapped bottom lip. Richie is grinning ear to ear like he’s experiencing the singular best high of his life when Eddie finally turns away with a wave and boards the train to his apartment.

**BEVERLY SOCIAL PROBLEM:  
**Eddieeeeeeeeee what did you do to richie lol, he’s so into you

 **Eddie:  
**??? lmao I didn’t do anything! Has he said anything about me???

 **BEVERLY SOCIAL PROBLEM:  
**he didn’t say anything, i can just tell. i know everything

 **Eddie:  
**We’ve known each other for less than 24 hours.

 **BEVERLY SOCIAL PROBLEM:  
**his mind runs on hollywood time haha

 **BEVERLY SOCIAL PROBLEM:**  
well anyway, i’m thinking of throwing him a housewarming party so you’re invited. i’ll let dumb & dumber know they’re invited too.

 **Eddie:**  
LOL. They really are fucking stupid aren’t they.

 **BEVERLY SOCIAL PROBLEM:**  
yeah like what’s the deal there? are they dating or not?

 **Eddie:**  
No. And I think they’re done for good this time, but they still want to take care of each other, since they’re both single. That’s what they told me. Audra is always trying to set Bill up with her friends. It never works out because, you know. It’s Bill.

 **BEVERLY SOCIAL PROBLEM:**  
what’s wrong with him ☹

 **Eddie:**  
I don’t know where to begin. But he’s my best friend and I love him, so. Here I am.

 **BEVERLY SOCIAL PROBLEM:**  
oh i almost forgot, look at this article about richie & yours truly. could they have possibly gone with an uglier picture of me, though? oh well. richie’s always been the beauty in the relationship, obviously. i’m the brains/brawn

 _A blast from the past! Enigmatic Beverly Marsh and disgraced Richie Tozier were seen at the club last night with some friends! I wonder if that means they’re desperate for a paycheck? What pointless reboot of beloved childhood media should we expect in the near future?_

**Eddie:**  
That’s so mean. It doesn’t bother you that people talk about you on the internet?

 **BEVERLY SOCIAL PROBLEM:**  
no, not really. i got over being self-conscious when my mom and dad had me doing diaper commercials the day after i was born

 **BEVERLY SOCIAL PROBLEM:**  
this journalist bitch, though, greta keene? she’s brutal. she’ll write about anything and anyone. she could have won, like… a nega-pulitzer for the piece she wrote about richie after the lisa vanderpump incident. it was really funny tho lol

Eddie is on his stomach, stretched out over his yoga mat in front of the TV. He didn’t actually manage to muster up the motivation to do any yoga before he started texting Beverly but getting to the mat is half of the battle, and he figures that’s better than nothing.

He hears the muffled sound of keys jingling outside the apartment door. “Fuck,” Audra whispers, stumbling into the apartment with her purse in one hand and her shoes in another.

“Please don’t tell me you walked in here barefoot,” Eddie says, distressed.

“The cab driver said the same thing,” Audra grumbles. She drops everything in her hands and beelines for the kitchen, pulls the tinfoil back on what’s left of Eddie’s birthday cake. “I’m going to puke this up in fifteen minutes,” she says, grabbing a fork from the silverware drawer and eating the cake directly out of the baking pan.

“Be careful, please, you know I can’t handle puke.”

“Don’t worry about me. Did you have a good birthday?”

“It was… great,” Eddie says tensely, because Audra has this _look_ on her face.

Audra leans against the kitchen counter, props up on one elbow and rests her chin in her hand. “Tell me why Richie Tozier was so into you,” she says, popping a bite of cake into her mouth.

“Tell me why you and Beverly both seem to think that’s true,” Eddie says. He knows that he is sitting on a valuable and enlightening piece of information, that this guy literally told Eddie he was in love with him right before they passed out together on the floor after a drunken night out.

“Bill does too,” Audra says with a shrug. “He texted me about it.”

“Bill doesn’t know shit about anything. Bill has always only ever approximated what it means to be a normal person, how is he supposed to recognize something like that? I can’t believe you would even say that to me like it proves your point.”

Audra laughs. “True,” she sighs. “Anyway, it’s not a big deal, Eddie. It’s just like Madonna said. Open your heart.”

“I’m fine, thanks,” Eddie snips. “I’ve been living my life the exact same way for twenty-five years and it’s worked well so far, so I’m not going to change it right now.”

“Oh, is that so?” Audra asks sharply. 

“Yes, that’s so,” Eddie shoots back. 

“So everything about your life is just _so_ perfect and there’s absolutely nothing—” “ _Yes_ , actually—” “Well I actually take issue with that because I know for a fact—” “No, you don’t know anything—” They are so busy pointlessly talking over each other that neither of them notice Bill has slithered back into the apartment, is standing equidistant between the kitchen and living room, and looking extremely confused.

“Is everything… o-okay?” he asks.

“Audra’s being combative because she’s hungover,” Eddie says.

“Yeah, he’s right,” Audra concedes. “Anyway, I’m gonna go take a bath, come check in on me if I’m not out in like. Two hours.” She stalks away to the bathroom, singing her latest audition ballad quietly under her breath.

“I don’t understand,” Bill says quietly. He sits down next to Eddie on the floor. “Y-yoga mat nap?”

“Audra and Beverly are hiveminding. And no, just a failed attempt to make up for missing morning yoga. I don’t have the energy to do anything but lie on the floor.” This is even after his body is scolding him for also sleeping on the floor the night before, sore, stiff, and off-kilter. Eddie is a faultless creature of habit and impossibly high standards, obsessed with sleep hygiene, and he slept on the _floor_ last night.

Bill reaches over to the bottom shelf on their entertainment center where the three of them keep their yoga mats and pulls out his, a deep blue that matches his eyes perfectly. He rolls the mat out and lies down on his stomach, arms folded under his head. Eddie supposes it’s a testament to how comfortable they’ve made their home together that the three of them can relax anywhere at all, even lying down on their yoga mats. They often fall asleep together after a lazy morning session on the weekends, a cool breeze blowing in through the window Audra keeps cracked whenever the weather permits. Eddie thinks it’s probably the most comfortable he has ever been and will ever be in his entire life. 

“Can I tell you something?” Eddie asks. He lowers his voice, as if Audra is going to be able to hear him over the sound of her singing and the running bath water. Bill nods sweetly. “Last night, Richie Tozier literally told me he’s in love with me.”

Bill’s eyebrows shoot up. “For r-r-real?”

“Like with such convincing certainty. After knowing me for a few hours. And me being, like. Me.”

Bill laughs nervously.

“I need to specify that this is literally after I told him about my _mother_.”

“I c-c-could tell last night that he was weirdly c-captivated by your usual neuroticism but this is not h-h-how I was expecting it to go, I have to admit,” Bill says.

“What do I do, Bill?”

“I don’t think you have to do anything,” Bill says thoughtfully. 

“Of course I have to do something. I do things, that’s who I am. I have problems and I find a solution. I’m not prepared for the responsibility of being such a colossal disappointment to someone who is unlucky enough to think I’m a normal person.”

“M-maybe being a normal person doesn’t really have anything to do with it.”

But Eddie can’t understand that. As far as he’s concerned, the roadblocks to his happiness have always been his own personal shortcomings. His inability to cope with what he was forced to endure from his mother as a child. His refusal to schedule appointments with the campus counselor when he was fresh on his own and still felt like maybe, just maybe he wasn’t too far gone to reach out for help. The way he decided one day that there are just some things you never get over, so there’s no point in trying. Closure is real, but not for Eddie.

So, it’s difficult for Eddie to accept love in any capacity. From Bill, from Beverly, from Audra, from anyone at all who treats him with nothing but earnestness and sincerity. Like trying to eat beyond the point of fullness, like vomiting in the bathroom after binge drinking, his body decided a long time ago that he was too full of despair and dysfunction to hold anything else. It’s difficult for Eddie to accept love, and it’s impossible for Eddie to accept that someone could spend hours focused totally on him, be given even the most simplified picture of his fucked up psychological landscape, and think anything positive about him at all.

Bill pulls his phone out of his pocket and faces the screen towards Eddie. “Look at what my m-mom sent me this morning,” he says. It’s a picture of an old Polaroid of Eddie and Bill smiling, Bill’s arm flung tightly around Eddie’s shoulder, holding him close. Eddie remembers this—it was the day after his ninth birthday and the Denbroughs had managed to convince Eddie’s mother to let Eddie go to the roller rink. Not thirty seconds after Eddie had cautiously entered the rink, holding hands with Bill on one side and Mrs. Denbrough on the other, he lost his balance and fell flat on his face, busting his nose and bleeding all down his shirt. Mr. Denbrough had snapped the picture as soon as they cleaned Eddie off and calmed down his crying. In hindsight, Eddie thinks this was probably the first moment he realized the undeniable intersection of his physical and mental wellbeing. It wasn’t even the busted nose that caused the tears. It was the fear of his mother’s wrath. Of x-rays and medicine and the threat of surgery, all the things she used to keep him hermetically sealed off from the rest of the world.

Of course Mrs. Kaspbrak lost her mind when Eddie was dropped off at home later that afternoon and she saw the state of him, but not even her hysterics and insistence that they drive to the emergency room immediately could take away the joy of that day.

“She kind of remembered my birthday,” Eddie says quietly. That’s the only takeaway he can grab.

“My parents love you like y-y-you’re their o-own. Even after everything… even after G-G-Georgie. They never stopped loving you, even when loving got k-kind of hard for them. People have a-always loved you in the r-right way, Eddie. N-n-not like your mom. It’s possible for someone t-to love you and be wrong about it. But m-m-most people love you in the best way.”

“Most of all you?” Eddie asks, allowing some of that pent up, childlike vulnerability to show itself. That tiny, angry version of himself following right at Bill’s heels. Desperate for approval, not understanding that he always had it.

“M-m-most of all me,” Bill says.

Fifteen-year-old Eddie would have prayed until his heart ached that Bill would close the space between them with a kiss. Twenty-five-year old Eddie is okay with the space between them staying as it is. No need to dig down deep for some distant remnant of childhood just to drive home the fact that his life didn’t turn out the way he dreamed it would when he was younger, and sadder, and needed those dreams to get him through each insufferable day with his mother. Eddie and Bill running away together after graduation. Eddie and Bill taking a road trip to California and deciding they like it so much they never want to go back. Bill publishing a novel and buying them a big house in the mountains where they never have to see anyone but each other if they don’t feel like it.

Twenty-five-year-old Eddie has an essay due on Monday. It’s his turn to take the trash out. He needs to think of a housewarming gift for Richie. He might feel a little better than okay one day. But for today, okay will suffice.


	2. love is surrender

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi!!!!!!!!!! general warnings for: rumination on death and grief, direct references to the death of a child (georgie), discussion of parental abuse, derealization/dissociation, recreational drug use, emotional manipulation, and alcoholism.

When Eddie arrives at work on Monday, he is tasked with intern work. The reason is that it’s one of Betty’s off days to accommodate her school schedule and most of the important office work today entails being on the phone and, well, that’s a job better left for Beverly.

“Because Beverly is nicer,” Eddie says.

“I never said that. You said that. One of our pieces was damaged during shipment, so I want you to take it to Kay’s office on 51st so she can repair it. It shouldn’t take long, you can just wait there for her to finish. You can help Beverly later if she needs it,” Stan says, placing a small grey box in Eddie’s hands.

Truthfully, Eddie doesn’t mind doing courier work. He prefers to walk rather than take the subway, so it gives him time to spend calmly in his own head, undoing all his tangled, messy, frantic Monday morning thoughts. The simple joy of walking most everywhere he needs to go wasn’t one that Eddie anticipated when he moved to the city. It’s easy to block out the city noise that was so grating to him when he first arrived. Everyone’s in a hurry, so no one looks at him. It’s peaceful.

He finished his paper for his night class this morning before work. It’s almost laundry time which means he has to go through the humbling and neurotic process of carrying a laundry basket full of clothes onto the subway—he can’t trust the laundromat around the corner of his building and has to use Beverly’s washer and dryer for his peace of mind. He’s overdue for a grueling but necessary phone conversation with his mother soon.

And he has a text from Richie Tozier sitting in his messages to which he has yet to respond, but that’s just whatever. Not a big deal. A non-issue. The last thing on Eddie’s mind, even.

It’s not a long walk to Kay’s office. He’s been here a few times before on various delivery jobs. Kay is warm and sweet—Eddie always imagines that working in her office would be a soft, quiet paradise compared to Patty and Stan’s. Patty and Stan are wonderful and fair, but they’re hard-asses at the end of the day. Kay buzzes him in and greets him with a hug.

“Let’s see the damage,” she says. She’s wearing magnified glasses with a little adjustable light attached to the headband. Eddie told her once she looked like the old guy from _Toy Story 2_ which she said was the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to her in her entire life.

“Stan probably shit himself when he opened the package and saw it,” Eddie says, handing her the box and watching her inspect the tiniest parts of the necklace with her skillful, sharp eyes.

“Oh, you know he popped a blood vessel. Hmm… Just an issue with the clasp. I’ll take this in the back and fix it up. Have a seat and I’ll be out soon.”

Eddie obliges—there’s an empty desk facing the front entry where a secretary would sit if Kay had one. Eddie isn’t sure how she handles running an entire office on her own, but he’s never seen her with any help for as long as he’s been making these visits. This is where he waits when Kay is tasked with a repair job. She will occasionally make a comment about wanting an extra hand around the office and sometimes he wonders if she’s hinting that she wants him to work for her instead of Patty and Stan. He has no interest in leaving them, but he’s flattered to be considered a viable candidate. It’s pretty much the highlight of the last seven years of his life to know at least three (3) people have been willing to hire him. The mundanity of it all makes him feel insane in some way. But all he’s ever wanted in his life is security and opportunity and fallback plans, and he has those things, so what’s the problem? He never knows what the problem with himself is. He’s good at creating problems out of nothing, so he isn’t going to overanalyze it. Well, he is. Just not right now.

Once he gets comfortable, he takes his phone out of his pocket and opens his messages. He and Richie have been texting with reasonable consistency since Saturday evening which has resulted in Eddie experiencing a rapidly oscillating range of emotions, because Richie can go from genuinely funny to heinously ingratiating at a moment’s notice.

But Eddie has a weakness and it was easily exploited as soon as Richie became privy to the fact that Eddie is an extreme sucker for insider knowledge of famous people; the complete monsters and absolute weirdos, affairs and fucked up fetishes, tax evasion, things like that—and Richie is more than happy to oblige with stories about all of the surreal Hollywood bullshit he’s witnessed in his life. His parents are still very much involved in the business and they have no qualms sharing these things either. It’s a family tradition, Richie explained. 

But more than indulging Eddie’s train wreck obsession with rich assholes, Richie asks Eddie questions. That’s what gets to Eddie the most. Richie genuinely seems interested in what he has to say about essentially every possible topic of discussion. Eddie finds himself typing out novel-length messages about his favorite obscure video games or readily sharing painful childhood memories in a way that doesn’t feel like he’s disemboweling himself, just commiserating with someone who seems to care. The sincerity of Richie’s interest is almost painful. It makes Eddie feel raw and exposed, but he’s isn’t strong enough to resist the urge to share the rotten bits of himself with someone who wants to take them in.

So Richie likes Eddie. Loves him? Eddie still can’t believe it, but Richie still said so the night they met. He hasn’t faltered even after hearing about the time Eddie threw up during gym class after he got hit in the stomach with a soccer ball and his mom stormed the school and embarrassed him so much he threw up again right in the principal’s office. And that must mean something.

**Richie** : _  
_you + tweedledee & tweedledum are coming to the housewarming party, right

Of course they are. The three of them have been mentally and emotionally laboring over what kind of housewarming gift you get for someone who wants for nothing. Bill said they can always fall back on a signed copy of his short story collection, which they have admittedly done before at other housewarming parties for various acquaintances, but it’s beginning to feel tacky and shameful.

(“It needs to be, like… unique, and fun, and sexy,” Audra decided unhelpfully.)

**Eddie** :   
Yes. Hope you like cheap boxed wine from Walgreens because that’s what your housewarming gift is.

**Richie** :   
aw eds seeing your smiling face will be the greatest gift of all

**Eddie** :  
Is my names Eds in your phone?

**Richie** :  
it’s eddie spaghetti ♥ ♥ ♥

**Eddie** :   
No ♥

**Richie** :   
are you texting on the job

**Eddie** :   
I’m waiting for a piece of jewelry to be repaired. The clasp is broken and I had to walk ten blocks so it could be fixed by one very specific person.

**Richie** :   
word. what are you wearing

**Eddie** :   
Are you serious right now? A button-up shirt and fucking slacks like a grown working man, you weirdo.

**Richie** :   
sexy. do you want to get dinner with me tonight

**Eddie** :   
I have a night class.

**Richie** :   
the knowledge that you would go with me if you didn’t have class will be enough to get me through this difficult time

**Eddie** :  
Maybe. Where did you want to take me? Did you intend to pay? There’s a lot of factors here.

**Richie** :   
i was thinking we could get high and buy snacks at duane reade and then eat them at my place out on the balcony. yes i would pay for the snacks

**Eddie** :   
Wow you really know how to sweep a guy off his feet.

**Richie** :  
what can i say, eds, im a romantic ♥

Kay returns with the necklace in perfect condition shortly and Eddie thanks her on behalf of Stan’s blood pressure. He takes his time walking back to the office, mostly just because he doesn’t feel like being on the phone for the rest of the day and he wants to prolong his inevitable fate for as long as he can. He holds onto the box containing the necklace with an iron-clad grip and has his other hand in his right pocket clutching his phone because he can’t decide if he wants to look at his messages from Richie again or not.

Only once before over the course of his entire life has Eddie ever experienced that cliché butterflies-in-his-stomach feeling that people are always talking about. He was a junior in high school at a football game with Bill and some other friends. Already anxious over how angry his mother was going to be at him later, Eddie was taking refuge underneath the bleachers to try and steady his breathing so that he could get through the remainder of the evening without hyperventilating. Soon enough, Bill found him—they talked, and then Bill cupped Eddie’s face in his hands and held him there very close. Maybe they almost kissed that night. Eddie has no idea how much of that is wishful thinking, rose-colored reminiscence, the way it’s human nature to idealize and romanticize nostalgia. But he knows that his stomach hurt in a good way and his cheeks flushed red and he could have cried when Bill instead pulled him into a hug. They sat in silence, Eddie’s gut twisted into knots, and later that night Bill drove Eddie home and walked him to the front door. They said goodnight and Eddie cried himself to sleep.

He has been on precisely one date since he moved to New York, with a girl named Myra who works in the same building, one office over. They frequently ran into each other on their way into work before their disastrous first and only date and her subsequent determination to never step foot within a fifty-mile radius of Eddie ever again. He was shocked when she asked him and stammered out an anxious yes because it seemed like the right thing to do. She was sweet, but their conversations were stilted and awkward as it seemed like they were capable of nothing more than accidentally tapping into each other’s insecurities. So Eddie briskly declined a second date and didn’t blame Myra for never wanting to see him again.

And Richie doesn’t really play into this narrative at all. But for the last two mornings, he has messaged Eddie _good morning_ and for some reason that just causes a peculiar and unfamiliar feeling in the pit of his stomach. The notion of being thought of. The idea of someone waking up and thinking about him first thing in the morning. It doesn’t make him sick like that mournful, painful night under the bleachers with Bill. But it makes him feel something. Butterflies, maybe, but his only point of reference doesn’t make it easy to ascertain.

When he turns back on to 40th Street, he puts these thoughts safely in the back of his mind. That’s the only way Eddie is capable of surviving. Strict, regimented compartmentalization. Otherwise he’d being going crazy from a discordant choir of stress and looming anxieties just on the horizon—all the things he needs to do, or say, or figure out in the next thirty seconds or his heart will explode. He flips the switch and shifts back in to work mode.

Not even a millisecond after Eddie steps foot in the office, Stan snatches the box from his hand and inspects the newly repaired necklace. “Perfect,” he whispers.

“So you can unclench now,” Beverly says sweetly, walking by to get one of her many daily cups of coffee from the small break room in the back of the office, the length of her dress swishing with every step she takes.

“I suppose I can,” Stan says. “Thank you, Eddie. It’s a big help when you pick up Betty’s leftover tasks. Feel free to take a longer lunch today if you want.”

“Can I?” Beverly calls from the break room.

“No.”

“But I’ve been working hard, too!”

“Jesus Christ, Beverly, _always_ trying to ride my coattails,” Eddie teases her, returning to his desk and powering on his computer so he can sift through whatever pointless emails he received while he was out of the office.

Beverly peeks her head out of the break room. “I _made_ you, Eddie. Do you want tea?”

“No, thank you. Do you want me to pick up the rest of the phone calls for you?” Eddie asks. It’s between the anxiety-inducing task of calling people on the phone or being bored into a coma by answering emails. In both cases, ideally, he dies instead of having to do any work.

“Let Beverly finish them,” Stan says. He’s hunched over his desk taking extremely up-close pictures of the necklace to send to Patty—she’s been in L.A. for the last couple of weeks networking and setting potential collaborations with other designers and fashion brands into motion. Stan won’t say it, but he misses her terribly and his meticulous method of keeping her informed of literally every breath any of them take in the office is his way of showing that he cares.

“Because Beverly is…”

“Good at talking on the phone,” Stan says diplomatically.

“And nicer,” Beverly chimes in. “Don’t forget nicer!”

Beverly and Eddie decide to get lunch from the halal cart on the corner. They eat together sitting on the floor outside of the office. Eddie was appalled the first time Beverly asked him to do this with her—but he’s a little better now with this sort of thing and Beverly keeps a blanket hung over the back of her chair for them to sit on like they’re on some sad little picnic.

“So I got a callback,” Beverly says.

“For what?”

“ _Man of La Mancha_.”

“Audra has a callback for that,” Eddie says, poking languidly at a tomato wedge. “What are the odds?”

“They must be looking for a type. Red hair,” Beverly says coolly. If she feels threatened, she’s doing a wonderful job at keeping it concealed.

“Do you think you’re ever going to quit working your day job and act for real?” Eddie asks. He’s not as good at concealing his feelings—the feeling that one day Beverly will leave him behind and he’ll be alone.

“I don’t know. Sometimes it dredges up bad memories. I’m also, like, admittedly not talented enough to have a prolific stage career. Honestly, sometimes I feel like I’m wasting my time no matter what I do, you know? But I have these really fitful… episodes. It’s hard to explain.” Beverly is separating her food into neat little piles—lamb, then rice, then vegetables. She takes a bite of rice. “When I’m with Richie, I get all these ideas. He’s so content with where he is. And somehow, I’m not. I don’t need to prove anything to him. But I still want to.” She pauses.

Eddie waits patiently for her to continue.

“He proposed to me when we were eighteen.”

Then Eddie nearly spits out his food.

“It was so fucking chaotic. I think he was high. He started crying about how he didn’t want to be an afterschool special or cautionary tale or whatever. He didn’t elaborate beyond that, but I know he was talking about being gay. I ended up leaving town a few months later and I couldn’t stop crying on the plane. I just kept thinking to myself that I wanted our lives to be exceptional, but I wasn’t even sure what I meant by that. Now he’s here, and he’s relatively well adjusted, and I’m… fitful and anxious. And unexceptional. I’m just wasting time. God… I’m sorry, Eddie. This is a real downer.”

“No… it’s fine, Bev. You have to let me be here for you,” Eddie says. He takes her hand. “I think you’re exceptional. You changed my life.” She looks at him, head tilted, hair framing her face and she looks like some idealized vision of a woman on a billboard, some otherworldly type of beauty that isn’t even achievable in real life. And yet here she is. “I never knew you felt this way. I’m sorry for never noticing.”

“Keeping it buried deep down inside usually serves me pretty well,” Beverly says. She smiles and squeezes Eddie’s hand. “I’m not sure what’s wrong with me. I’m thinking of seeing a therapist. Oh, yes, doctor. My life is too good. I’m too comfortable. I have too many options. Woe is me! Poor Beverly.”

“Beverly, it isn’t like that and you know it. Everything you’re feeling makes total sense. And if you feel like you need help, you should get it.”

“I can’t even talk to Richie about this,” Beverly whispers, pushing her food away unfinished. “He’ll get all worried and weird.”

“Understandably so,” Eddie says hesitantly, knowing that he’s taking a risk here with the way Beverly is tensing up the farther they take the conversation.

“I don’t _want_ people to worry about me,” Beverly snaps, and then she immediately softens, looking remorseful. “I’m sorry. It just makes me feel… sick.”

It’s funny, Eddie thinks. Beverly is always fretting over him, worrying over him, fussing over him, but the idea of being worried over herself makes her feel horrible. He wonders if it’s worth pointing out. He wonders if it’s even the same thing. Whatever differences she perceives between the two of them, she’s probably right. Beverly’s always right about everything.

“Eddie, can I ask you something?” He knows he doesn’t need to answer her because she’s going to ask him no matter what he says. “Are you gay?”

Eddie gives a loose shrug. “I don’t know. I guess so.” He doesn’t like to think about it. In an alternate universe, he’s living with his mother and dating a girl from church who is too good for him. But in this universe, he can’t say anything in absolutes. How would he know? He’s never gotten that close to anyone before.

She nods, content with his answer. “Can you just do me a favor and let Richie down easy if you have to? As softly as you can.”

There’s a heavy silence between them. “He told you?” Eddie asks, finally.

“Yes.”

“Do you think he was serious?”

“I do,” Beverly says without much thought. “I really do.”

There’s a girl on the subway who is lightly practicing some tap dance steps by the door. Eddie can’t help but watch her. She moves her feet as minimally as possible as she scrolls through her phone, thoroughly distracted from what’s going on around her. It’s unreal. She just looks so utterly perfect.

When the train stops, she looks up and gives him a sweet, dimpled smile. He has one more stop to go. He watches her leave and wonders where she’s going.

Has anyone ever looked at him and thought that he looked sublimely perfect in whatever he was doing? Like he was exactly where he was meant to be at that moment? He can’t imagine that. All he ever wanted when he was a child was to be ignored and to be noticed simultaneously. He was desperate for his mother to forget about him. If he came home from school one day to her complete and utter indifference, he would have been the happiest boy alive. And all he wanted from Bill was constant attention, love, adoration, support, protection, he wanted to wring Bill dry of every positive emotion like a washrag and wash himself clean. There was desperation in Bill to fill a void after Georgie died. They were only children, but in hindsight Eddie is sure that his selfish little brain was taking advantage of that void. Twisting and shrinking himself to fit into the Georgie shaped hole in Bill’s heart.

Bill held Eddie’s hand the day Henry Bowers snapped the bone in Eddie’s arm. Bill sat next to Eddie on the pavement and held his hand, tears filling his blue eyes, telling Eddie that everything was going to be okay. Nothing was ever going to be okay again. Eddie knew that. He wasn’t stupid. And Bill wasn’t stupid. But Bill was hopeful. He was an unwavering optimist. He was a lighthouse.

He is a lighthouse.

It’s Eddie’s stop. He considers staying on. He considers going somewhere very, very, very far away. But he stands up, and he exits the train, and he walks up the stairs to ground level. His phone vibrates with text messages and a cursory glance shows that they aren’t from Bill, or from Beverly, or Audra, or Richie. They are from his mother. He turns off his phone completely and walks to class.

He’s good at going through the motions of being normal. He participates in class discussions. His professor praises his understanding of the material before waxing pretentious about the importance of the field of psychology. Truthfully, Eddie doesn’t care anymore. He first started college with the intention of doing something practical that would give him job security. He got a prescription for Adderall and took it like his life literally depended on it. He broke down, he went home, and he decided that he needed to understand what was wrong with him. That’s why he is majoring in psychology. But he doesn’t care anymore. And he would care an equal or lesser amount about literally anything at this point in his life.

When class is over, he turns his phone back on. His mother misses him, she wants to talk to him, she wants to know when he’s going to move back home, she doesn’t understand what he’s doing, she doesn’t understand why he wants to hurt her so badly. Eddie Bear, why do you hate me? Eddie Bear, why did you leave me here alone? Eddie Bear, I always knew you would leave me. Why don’t you come home? Haven’t you broken my heart enough?

First your father, Eddie Bear, and now you? Now you, too?

Going on the subway to get home gives him the excuse of ignoring her with good reason due to a lack of phone service. But once he’s back in his neighborhood, she’s back in the forefront of his mind.

He has half a mind to drop his phone right through a sewer grate. He stops to look at himself in the reflection of the glass window that shows the inside of a shop full of cheap I ♥ NY touristy shirts and hats and trinkets. To remember that he’s real. Just to remind himself that he’s still here.

And then he unlocks his phone and scrolls through his contacts. And _then_ he calls someone.

“Hey, Eds!”

“Hi,” he says, and continues in the direction of home.

“To what do I owe this honor?” Richie asks. Eddie can faintly hear the distant sound of a keyboard clacking in the background.

“Just wanted company for the walk home. Are you busy?”

“Not really, I’m just trying to get some favors for Audra. My connection pool in New York isn’t as extensive as back in L.A., though. Is she Equity?”

“No, she isn’t. That’s really nice of you, Richie,” Eddie says. He means it. That’s an extremely nice thing to do for someone Richie just met. His heart clenches. “I’m in a strange mood.”

“Tell me about it, Eds, I’m all ears.”

“Okay. But you can’t call me Eds anymore.”

“No promises.”

“I had this extremely surreal moment of, like, pure derealization on the subway and now I feel like I’m outside of my body watching myself walk down the street.” Straight to the point. Eddie has no time to fuck around. He’s only a couple of blocks away from home and he is not going to carry this conversation with him to his room, to his bed.

“I stick my head in the freezer and like… hold ice cubes in my hand when that happens, usually.”

Eddie laughs. It feels good to laugh. He can feel the laughter coming from his own chest. “I guess a harsh sensory input is probably good for grounding,” he says.

“And then I smoke weed.”

“Wow. Bad. Absolutely the worst possible thing you could do in that situation.”

“Well, Eds, I guess that’s why you’re the psych major and not me.” There’s a brief pause. “It’s nice to talk to you.”

“Why do you say things like that?” Eddie asks, and it comes out a little angrier than he intended.

“I don’t know, ‘cause it’s true? I like talking to you,” Richie says, unfazed. “I kind of want to talk to you all the time now.”

“Hmm. White or red wine?” Eddie asks, changing the subject.

“How cheap are we talking here? Like, laying on the floor under the nozzle of a box?”

“Yes.”

“White, of course. So thoughtful of you, Eds. I can’t wait to get thoroughly trashed this weekend. I hope you’ll join me.”

“I don’t know if I will, but I’m sure Audra would be happy to. I’m back at my place now, so… I guess I’ll let you go,” Eddie says, looking up at the tall expanse of his apartment building. They live on the third floor. Significantly less frightening than Beverly’s tenth floor apartment. “I’ll see you on Saturday, then.”

“Or sooner?” Richie offers. There it is. That sincerity, that insane earnestness that runs the serious risk of breaking down all of Eddie’s meticulously placed and reinforced emotional defenses. Someone wants to see him. Someone is trying to see him.

“Maybe sooner. Goodnight, Richie,” Eddie says.

“Night, Eds.”

Eddie ends the call and he ascends the stairs to the apartment. Bill and Audra are on the couch, Audra’s legs thrown over Bill’s lap, and they’re watching trashy reality TV. They’re happy to see Eddie. And Eddie is happy to be home.

It is now Thursday and they have not come to a consensus on an appropriate housewarming gift.

“So,” Audra says, “I have a gift idea. For the party.” 

“I really thought we decided we were just going to wrap one of my b-books up nicely and hope he doesn’t o-o-open it until everyone is gone,” Bill says after a prolonged groan. He and Eddie are sitting together on the couch. Bill is bored, trying to find something to watch on Netflix and Eddie is typing away furiously on his laptop, crunching to finish an assignment that’s due in two hours. 

“Yes, we can still do that, but I have something else. We can do both things.” Bill and Eddie finally look up at her. She is holding something behind her back. “Ta-da!” She reveals a small, extremely ugly decorative vase—the vase is so ugly, in fact, that Bill literally screams. Eddie stares at it, slack jawed.

“Audra…” Bill says.

The vase is brown with swooping red and purple floral patterns all along the surface, kind of like Sour Patch Kids threw up on a pile of dirt. Eddie thinks it is literally the ugliest thing he has ever seen in his life. So he says: “Audra, that is literally the ugliest thing I have ever seen in my life.”

“I know… I know. My mom bought it for me last time she was in town because she wanted to make the apartment look nicer. But she’s a crazy woman. I’ve had it in my closet since then and I think this is finally our chance to get rid of it.”

“Audra…” Bill says again. He has been rendered nearly speechless by the oppressive hideousness of this vase.

“I have something else.” Audra opens the top of the vase and tilts it down _just_ so. 

“Weed?!” Eddie says incredulously.

“Yes! So the vase is merely a vessel. He’s going to love it. I figured it out just like I always figure everything out. You can thank me this Saturday when we all get stoned after the party.”

Bill and Eddie look at each other and then they look back at Audra. Eddie gives an exhausted laugh and a shrug of resignation and returns to his assignment. Bill turns on an episode of _The Great British Baking Show_. Audra sits down on the floor between the two of them.

“You know,” Audra says, leaning against Eddie’s leg. “Richie has just been so good to me since Beverly introduced us. Putting in a good word for me with so many different people in business. It just makes me think about how… when you’re lucky enough to meet someone so kind, and so nice, and so generous, you should really do your best to hold on to them as close as you can.”

“What you’re saying to me feels extremely loaded,” Eddie says, closing his laptop as he comes to realization that Audra isn’t going to allow him to finish his assignment so easily.

“Why, Edward!” Audra holds a hand over her heart. “I’m hurt that you would even suggest such a thing.”

“I really want to learn to b-b-bake from scratch,” Bill says, not listening to either one of them. Oh to live in Bill’s peaceful fantasy world. He and Audra go back and forth with their riveting commentary on the show, doling out endless criticism towards the contestants even though between the two of them, they have the kitchen competence of a twelve-year-old. 

Eddie knows he has to finish his assignment and he’s annoyed at Bill and Audra for willfully diverting his attention away from it, so he skulks into his room with his laptop. Without any distractions, he manages to finish and submit it with time to spare. He normally doesn’t wait until the last minute for things like this and he feels extremely pathetic considering that he doesn’t even have a full-time schedule this semester, but he has stayed in the office later than usual the last two days to make up hours he was given off the previous week. Patty and Stan don’t really bring down the hammer on this, and it’s because Eddie appreciates them so much that he is willing to put in those hours, sometimes staying until close to nine in the evening filing paperwork or cleaning which leaves him exhausted.

He closes his laptop and sets it down on the floor, then flops back on his bed. The second he thinks he might be dozing off, his phone rings.

“Hello,” he says without looking at who is calling. 

“Eddie, baby,” Beverly says. “I just wanted to call and check on you. Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m fine…” Eddie says, confused. “Why?”

“I don’t know. You’ve just been looking a little tired, so I wanted to make sure everything is going… okay?”

“You just saw me like five hours ago. You know how everything is going.” Beverly never minds when Eddie gets a little snippy with her, which is good, because Eddie doesn’t always have the energy to sanitize himself in conversations like this. Yes, he’s exhausted. Yes, he’s grouchy. No, he has never been the best at emotional regulation. That’s just who he is!

“I was just wondering… and please don’t take this wrong way, but have you ever thought about therapy?”

He wonders how long she’s been thinking of that one. “I have, actually, but I figured out all of my problems and everything that’s wrong with me already so I don’t need to pay a professional to listen to me talk about my mother,” he says glibly. There’s sincerely no point.

“It’s really not just that. But I don’t want to force you to talk about anything you don’t want to. I just wanted to let you know that I found a therapist who is currently taking new clients, so I’m going to send you the number. Please… just consider it. Okay?”

“… Okay,” Eddie says softly, feeling a distinct pang of sadness right in the pit of his guts.

Beverly heaves an audible sigh of relief. “Well, that’s all I wanted to say, Eddie. I’m going to let you go. Goodnight.” She hangs up. She’s always thinking of him.

Eddie can’t help but imagine what his life would be like if Beverly had been there the whole time. Of course, there’s no way that Beverly’s hypothetical child self could have prevented any of that which was imparted on to Eddie by his mother. But he thinks that with Bill on one side and Beverly on the other, he would have been mostly unstoppable in the face anything.

She was probably a really cute kid. She mentioned before that she used to wear her hair long, but she’s never shown Eddie any pictures. There aren’t any pictures of her from childhood around her apartment, though there are a few of Ben with his parents and family pets. She has also mentioned rather disturbingly in passing that there are significant portions of her early life which she simply can’t remember—she isn’t sure whether it’s because she’s repressing something that can be dug up with professional assistance or if she’ll have to live with these lapses in her memory forever. It’s because of this that Eddie finds it particularly interesting that she remains so unattached from the work she did as a child—an extremely specific avoidance of anything that might accidentally awaken painful memories when she least expects it. She is happier not knowing.

Eddie can be honest about the fact that he has spent his entire adult life thus far trying to forget things. He never stopped to consider what it would be like to live without the knowledge of those informative childhood experiences. Everything that has ever happened to Eddie is a puzzle piece and the puzzle pieces form together to create the perfect picture of Eddie Kaspbrak. It would no doubt be terrifying to simply feel the way he does and not be able to look back on the past for a reason why.

The day after Georgie’s funeral, Bill came over to Eddie’s house. Mrs. Kaspbrak was feeling rather sympathetic towards him, so she allowed him to spend the night. They read comics and laid together stretched out across the floor, Bill grabbed Eddie’s hand and said, “I wish I could just forget for five minutes. I just want to feel okay for five minutes. Then I’ll go back to normal.”

Bill said he would go back to normal—a day after his brother was put in the ground, he had accepted the absence of Georgie as normal. The next morning, Bill woke up in a peaceful haze. He said good morning. And then he began crying. It took him a moment to remember what had happened. When he opened his eyes to greet a new day, his normal was the knowledge of his little brother playing happily in the front yard of their home. Eddie touched Bill’s face. He wished he could absorb the pain for those five minutes of respite for which Bill was so desperate. He would hold the pain for as long as he could. It should have been that easy. If someone is willing to do something, they should be able to do it. But he couldn’t. He touched Bill’s face. He could not alleviate the pain.

It’s easier to dwell on tragedy than count your blessings. Eddie is a prime example of that. How is it that the entirety of humanity shares the universal experience of grief and has yet to come up with a foolproof way of navigating enduring pain and heartache?

On Eddie’s birthday, Bill had confidently said he wouldn’t trade his time with Eddie for the world and so, he would be content to keep the bad days as well. But would Bill choose to wipe his mind and his heart of his most painful memories, cherrypicked exactly to his liking? Would he erase Georgie from the very core of his being if it meant he never had to wake up on Christmas morning and sob until his throat was raw at the memory of Georgie’s stocking filled to the top with his favorite candy? Eddie knows the answer to this—Bill cherishes the time he had with Georgie. He feels the pain because of the depth of his love. The love and the pain are indistinguishable from one another.

Eddie closes his eyes tight and shakes his head, as if that will expel these heavy thoughts right out of his brain. He hates it when he gets caught up in these long, circular trains of thought about the profound suffering of life. Not just his life, but the lives of everyone around him and everyone who has ever existed. The way people will never fully understand each other despite everyone experiencing the same universal truths—loss, pain, guilt, death. 

That day in Eddie’s childhood bed, maybe he could have pressed his forehead against Bill’s. He could have held the two of them there, totally still, until they became one. And then he could have felt the pain in Bill’s heart. And then he would have known how to handle it.

That’s all in the past. He can hear Audra’s shrieking laughter from the living room, and something calls him back out there. She’s holding the ugly vase in her lap and laughing at something Bill has said.

Eddie loves the way Audra sees the world. If things don’t go her way, she laughs. She changes her plans. She’s always smiling. She’s filled to the brim with joy. Anything she says somehow sounds like a good idea. Eddie jokes that Bill and Audra are hopeless without him, but it’s closer to the truth to say that Bill and Eddie are hopeless without Audra. She keeps them smiling.

Audra lost her parents at sixteen. The last two years of her formative teens were spent living with her sister, brother-in-law, and their three children. They loved her and accepted her into their home readily, but she had to sleep in the attic because there wasn’t enough room for her elsewhere. She put glow in the dark stars all over the walls and the ceiling. She put up posters of her favorite musicals. Eddie knows this because Audra told him. And because there are framed pictures all over the room she shares with Bill. Of her parents, of her sister and brother-in-law, of her nieces and nephew. Slumber parties in her modest attic bedroom with friends she made her first week at a new school—she is still in contact with those friends. Everyone who meets Audra falls a little in love with her.

When Audra talks about these things, her lips turn up in a smile. But there an undeniable sadness in her eyes. The smile and the sadness are not mutually exclusive. She has mastered the art of allowing her feelings to come and go in their natural way.

Eddie sits down beside her on the floor and wraps his arms around her, pulling her into a surprise hug. She lets out a small gasp before she lets go of the vase and hugs him right back. 

“What’s up, sweetheart?” she asks quietly.

“You’re right. When you meet someone kind and nice, you have to hold on to them as tightly as you can,” Eddie says, squeezing her as hard as he can manage at this angle, as if that will transfer the love he feels straight to her heart. And then she’ll understand. He loosens one arm from the hug and reaches back to grab Bill’s leg. Ungraceful, but the only way he can make meaningful contact. “Can we live together forever?” he asks. He’s a little serious. The three of them laugh.

“Yes, but you missed the newest d-development. I’m g-giving up writing to be a baker,” Bill says with a smile.

“Bill, you know I support you in everything you do, but… you’re terrible at baking,” Eddie says like a parent trying to break horrible news to their beloved child. 

“Yeah,” Bill nods. “I am.”

Audra’s laughing again, like bells ringing. “I have a great idea, though. We’ll have our own building and it’ll be like… Bill’s bakery at the bottom, my acting studio on the second floor, and your thing on the third floor.”

“My thing,” Eddie repeats.

“Yeah, your thing, whatever psychology people do,” Audra says with a wave of her hand.

“What?” Eddie and Bill ask in unison. 

“What?” Audra asks.

“I n-need to know why you don’t know what p-p-people who major in psychology do with their degrees,” Bill says.

“Baby, you know I’m too pretty to know things like that,” Audra says, and she gracefully flips her hair.

“Jesus Christ,” Eddie whispers through his laughter. “I’m going to bed now. I’ll see you guys tomorrow,” he says, and stands up.

Audra holds onto Eddie’s hand for as long as the length of their arms will allow as he walks back to his room. For some reason, this makes him human again. And the next time he finds himself in a darkened mood, unable to salvage anything good from his life, he’ll remember the night he and his friends laughed together over an ugly vase, pipe dreams of owning businesses stacked on one another, and wished a little bit that they could live together, happy, forever.

At around midnight, just as he is on the cusp of sleep, Eddie’s phone lights up with a message.

**Richie:  
** hey

**Richie** :   
wanna like. get a drink or something

**Eddie** :  
Come on dude it’s like midnight

**Richie** :  
yea i know

It isn’t like Eddie works tomorrow—he has every other Friday off at the office with the intent of giving Betty the opportunity to stretch her proverbial legs and work on more complicated tasks. It really is up to him. There is technically nothing stopping him other than his own weird reservations and the fact that he is a little tired. Ah well. What’s the harm?

**Eddie:  
** Sure. Give me the address

Richie sends him an address for a bar on the Upper East Side. He can tell by the heavy silence weighing over the apartment that Bill and Audra are asleep and he doesn’t feel like answering any questions in the event that he accidentally wakes them up, so being quiet is paramount. He gets out of bed and fumbles around the dark room for his wallet and something to wear, making sure to grab a sweater to suit the mild September weather—he doesn’t have the confidence to try and soundlessly open the closet in the living room for an overcoat as it runs the risk of waking Bill and Audra.

He opens his bedroom door and creeps out towards the front. The only obstacle now is trying to leave the apartment without alerting their neighbor’s annoying, yappy little piece of shit dog that barks at literally every sound it hears. He takes a deep breath and turns the doorknob. Gently pulls the door open, slides out into the hallway, and closes it behind him.

This is the hard part—locking the door. For some reason, this always gets the attention of the dog and sends it into absolute hysterics no matter how quiet Eddie tries to be. If he were selfish and evil, he would just leave without locking the door behind him. That is how much he doesn’t want to deal with Bill and Audra right now.

He slides the key in, twists it until he can feel the door lock, and sighs and takes a moment to collect himself. It’s only then that the dog begins barking, and Eddie makes a mad dash to the elevator, aggressively pushing the down button until the doors open. He made it.

It goes without saying that Eddie does not spend a lot of time in the Upper East Side. Beverly has occasionally dragged him to a restaurant or a party in that part of town, but it isn’t his preferred stomping ground. His preferred stomping ground, of course, starts where his apartment sits in Manhattan Valley and ends where Beverly’s apartment sits in Midtown. He hails a cab and gives the driver the address for the bar. He can’t really place what about this feels so secretive and sneaky, but it’s probably just because he rarely ever does anything without telling Bill and Audra first, in case he dies and they need to be prepared to identify the body.

Taxi cabs are disgusting by nature. God knows how many dirty, sweaty asses the backseat of this car has seen throughout the day. But it’s been a long time since Eddie had to literally carry sanitizing wipes with him in the event of having to catch a cab home, so he’ll chalk this one up to emotional growth. It’s a quick ride, just about fifteen minutes and the driver hums along to some classic rock song that for some reason reminds Eddie of his dad.

Since it’s a Thursday night, the bar isn’t particularly busy. There are a few drunken stragglers hanging out around the entrance who try to bum cigarettes off Eddie and then call him a pussy when he says he doesn’t smoke. He wants to tell that they don’t even rank in the top five assholes who have called him a pussy at bars for various reasons, but then one of them throws up and he leaves them be.

The bar has an ambiance that makes Eddie feel kind of weird, something about the harsh red-tinted lighting that makes everything look like it’s happening in slow motion. The walls are lined with large posters of classic movies and there’s a light hum of conversation underneath some grocery store type 80s music playing from a jukebox towards the back, compromised by pretentious looking dudes who are trying to lecture their dates about new wave hits they think they're cool for listening to. Richie spots Eddie and waves him over to a booth in the very back of the bar.

His messy dark hair is poorly contained in a beanie and he is wearing different glasses. Eddie probably would have mistaken him for a total stranger if he were a little less observant. He doesn’t say anything at first. Just tilts his head to the side and gives Eddie that same goofy grin from the other night at Beverly’s.

“Hey,” Eddie says, sitting down and taking note of the two empty glasses on the table.

“Hey, Eds.”

“Eddie. Call me Eddie.”

Richie shrugs like he has no comprehension of the English language and can’t process the words that just left Eddie’s mouth.

“So, I just want to clear one thing up,” Eddie says. “If you hadn’t called me, you would have spent all night here drinking… alone.”

“Yep!” Richie says pleasantly.

“Okay!” Eddie says, matching his tone. They aren’t close enough for Eddie to bust out the longwinded lectures about not only drinking excessively, but also drinking alone. It obviously isn’t anything Richie hasn’t heard before, but Eddie isn’t used to this strange, foreign concept of keeping his mouth shut about matters of health.

“You look like you want to say something and that it’s like… eating you alive that you aren’t saying it,” Richie says, grinning.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Eddie clips. They are both silent. Eddie explodes. “I just think you have some bad alcohol-related habits that we need to discuss. Going out and drinking in moderation is okay, but drinking alone? This is hallmark sign of alcoholism. Beverly told me that you were doing better and you’re going to make her worry. That’s not to even mention the long-term damage you’re doing to your liver—do you want hepatitis? Cirrhosis?”

Richie props his elbow up on the table between them and rests his chin in his hand. “You’re preaching to the choir, but I like it when you fuss over me.”

The good thing about the garish red lighting in this bar is that Richie probably can’t see the blush creeping over Eddie’s face. “Well, I’ve been told that’s what I do best,” he says, crossing his arms and looking off to the side to avoid any uncomfortably earnest eye contact.

“Let me get you something to drink,” Richie offers, “then I won’t be drinking alone. I also need to take control of the jukebox because I hate the vibes those chucklefucks are manifesting right now.”

Eddie agrees to Richie’s offer, figuring that it would be completely fucking pointless to come all the way to a bar in the Upper East Side and not have at least one drink. Richie leaves him alone at their booth, stops by the jukebox and spends a significant amount of time queuing up God knows what before he heads off to the bar and then finally returns with a drink in each hand.

“I got you an old fashioned because it reminded me of you,” he says, sliding a glass over to Eddie.

“Because of the bitters?” Eddie asks, ready to be offended.

“Yeah, but it has the sugar, too. Eds, don’t be such a pessimist.”

“Not my name,” Eddie glowers over his drink. 

It takes three reasonably stout drinks for him to reach a happy drunken haze. “So I was walking home with Bill. And this guy, the town bully. Henry Bowers. He just grabs my arm and twists it, and he twists it so fucking hard that my arm _snaps_.”

“Holy fucking shit,” Richie whispers emphatically, a look of pure terror on his face.

“It hurt so bad. And Bill was crying. But you know what’s weird? I couldn’t cry. I was just lying there laughing,” Eddie continues. He throws back the remainder of his drinks and chews on a piece of partially melted ice. Anemia, probably, he thinks to himself. But whatever.

“Did you have, like, some profound existential awakening?” Richie asks, also finishing off another drink. “Because that’s insanely badass. How old were you?”

“I was twelve. And yeah, it was so fucking weird, I was just like… you know what? _Life is such a joke. I have such a profound understanding of the way the world works now_. That’s what I was thinking and I couldn’t stop laughing. … Sometimes my arm still aches when it rains or if it’s super cold,” Eddie says, running his hand over the area of the break. His mom had been so upset that day and she took all her anger out on Bill, screaming and yelling that this was somehow his fault and he was a horrible friend. It’s strange to recall this memory and not be completely beaten down with residual sorrow. He’s smiling. He’s laughing.

“I also had a somewhat traumatic childhood injury,” Richie says, “but you can’t tell anyone because I’ll be, like, crazy embarrassed. My parents got me a horse when I was fourteen. And that horse headbutted me in the face within a minute of meeting me. And broke my nose.”

Eddie winces and empathetically holds his hands over his own nose. “That sounds beyond fucking horrible.”

“It absolutely wrecked my shit. The really fucked up part is, though,” Richie says, and he’s starting to laugh harder and harder with every word. “My mom was like, _oh poor Richie! Well, now’s a good time for us to get you that nose job, right_?”

“Are you kidding me!” Eddie gasps, gripping the edge of the table in shock. He laughs, albeit a bit nervously, because something about laughing at someone else’s adolescent misfortune feels wrong.

“Nope! And that is how I got a nose job at age fourteen. I’ll have to find some pictures my parents took during the recovery because I looked. Horrifying, frankly. No person should look the way I looked. But I did.”

Eddie tilts his head and leans over the table to inspect the curve of Richie’s nose. “That’s a great nose job,” he says in complete awe.

“Yeah, it turned out okay in the end. My old nose was fine, just a little big for my face. My mom was desperate for me to get it fixed,” Richie says nonchalantly. As if there isn’t something inherently fucked up in knowing that your mother wanted your nose chiseled down when you were just a kid.

Eddie holds his position over the surface of the table, his face so close to Richie’s that his eyes start crossing. “You’re really handsome,” he says.

“Aw, come on Eds, you’re gonna make me blush. Hey—listen, the songs I queued are finally playing,” Richie says, nodding in the direction of the jukebox in the corner.

Eddie returns to his seat and listens intently. “Are you,” he says slowly, “fucking joking right now. The motherfucking Carpenters.”

“This is very serious, Eddie,” Richie says, “I wouldn’t joke about the Carpenters. That’s just not the kind of person I am.”

“I have to tell you something. For the first thirteen years of my life, my mom wouldn’t let me listen to anything but some old records she kept from her parents’ house after they had died. And one of them was _this_ album!” He remembers lying on the living room floor of his mother’s home, reading comics with Bill, sun streaming through the blinds over the windows, the grainy sound of the record spinning filling the room, _why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near? Just like me, they long to be close to you._ He remembers being very happy.

“My mom played Karen Carpenter in some exploitative docudrama and every single word of _Close To You_ is seared on my frontal lobe. It’s all we listened to around the house for months.” Richie’s expression softens, like he’s recalling something that’s almost too tender, too personal to share. He normally doesn’t look like this when he mentions his parents. 

_Love is surrender. You must surrender if you care._ “Richie, I’m kind of having a moment,” Eddie says, “I need to ask you something and you can’t make it… a _thing_.”

Richie nods and stares at Eddie expectantly, silently.

“The next time we hang out can we try, like, being sober?” Eddie asks, feeling a bit sheepish. “I want to make sure I can remember conversations like this in the morning.”

Somewhere over the course of their conversation, their hands have inched closer and closer together across the width of the table.

“I can do sober,” Richie says amiably. “I think it’s about time we get you back to your apartment, huh?”

Eddie nods, not particularly committed to the idea, but undeniably drawn to the idea of being asleep in his bed compared to drinking to a point that he’s going to regret when he wakes up tomorrow. “I can get a cab. You don’t have to worry about me,” he says, but he doesn’t have the energy to be stubborn about it.

“Eddie, I’m going to see you home, okay? I insist. Let me clear the tab.”

“You drank more than me and yet you’re the one who’s acting like you have to take care of me.” Eddie doesn’t know how he feels about someone else stepping into the role in his life that is exclusively filled by Beverly. He would rather stumble up to his apartment disoriented and alone than show even one ounce of vulnerability to someone new.

“Yeah, because I think you’re kind of a lightweight and I want to make sure you get home safely, Eds.”

“ _Not_ my name.”

“You are _such_ a brat,” Richie says, stuck somewhere between disbelief and subtle exasperation. That’s when the infinitesimal gap between their fingers finally closes, loosely intertwined, and they aren’t exactly holding hands but it’s something close.

Richie refuses to let Eddie pay for any of his drinks, which infuriates Eddie to no end. “You better get over it now, because I’m not letting you pay for the ride home either,” Richie says, and Eddie bristles, but as they stand together on the curbside their hands are brushing against each other, fingers hooking together and withdrawing, until Eddie makes the decision to take Richie’s hand in his. Richie looks at him, eyes wide and mouth clamped shut in genuine surprise.

They hail a cab and Eddie gives the driver his home address. The air conditioning is running at full blast which seems excessive for this time of year, but Eddie is comfortable. He and Richie are mostly silent. They sit close together, still holding hands, and thank the driver kindly when the ride is over.

“You’re going to walk with me to my apartment,” Eddie says while they are waiting for the elevator door to open, “because you think you love me.”

“More or less,” Richie says.

“I’m not inviting you in.”

“What floor?” Richie asks, and Eddie hits the “3” button with his knuckle. “I don’t expect you to invite me in or do anything other than let me make sure you get home okay, Eddie.”

Eddie’s stomach lurches as the elevator begins moving up. He hates the feeling just the same no matter how many times he experiences it. He laces his fingers with Richie’s. The elevator door opens with a groan fitting for the outdated services of the building and Eddie leads Richie to the door of their apartment with its peeling paint and crooked “309” marker.

“Goodnight, Richie,” he says. “And thank you,” he adds briskly.

“No problem, Eds. Goodnight,” Richie says. Softly. More tender than Eddie probably deserves considering the fuss he’s made.

Eddie pulls his keys out of his pocket and unlocks the door, not caring that the neighbor’s dog immediately sets off an aggressive string of barking and growling in response to the sound. Eddie thinks for one moment that maybe he will invite Richie in, but he immediately decides against it. It’s just not the right time. They’re both drunk. They just met.

Eddie has lived his entire life trying to avoid making stupid decisions with an impressive success rate and he’s not about to give that up right now.

He gives Richie one last exhausted look and closes the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the carpenters were a musical duo, primarily active in the 70s. they're known for their soft rock/"easy listening" style of music.

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter!](https://twitter.com/hereditary_2018)


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